Isn't deconstruction just a growing pain?

 

Isn’t "religious deconstruction" the same as “owning your faith” or “changing your beliefs” just a little?  

Isn't it just "growing pain" for a person who is religious?

In some ways, yes.  It can be like that.  

Or at least it can look like that from the outside.

Usually the idea of owning your faith is “confirming” that you’ve looked over your beliefs and can say that you agree with them as "your own".  

Changing your beliefs can mean anything really - from modifying how you think about what happens “in church” to whether you believe in some kind of end-time prophecy or not to whether you think a certain version of the Bible is “okay” or not.

Both of those kinds of things happen *inside* the same worldview.  

That means you’ve not looked at the world “from outside” of how you saw it before.  You retained the general Judeo-christian point of view and made some moves inside of it.  

You didn’t necessarily step outside of it and question the point of view or that reality itself.

Deconstruction of faith, belief, or religion goes a little deeper for many in that they may step completely away from that whole reality - even if it’s only for a short time.

How is that possible?  What would that even look like?

Imagine outer space aliens showed up one day and their existence was undeniable - not a faked artificial intelligence thing, but you actually see them, their space ships, etc.

They spend time communicating with the planet and show us amazing technology and take us to places around and outside our galaxy, so we know they’re real.

At some point, someone asks them questions about the origin or beginning of their civilization and history and we tell them what we know of ours.

In the interaction with them, they say, “Well, we’ve watched yours develop from a distance through the probes - you call them UFO’s - for a long time.  Parts of your history are true, but most of your understanding of where you and your planet came from are not actually true.  You’ve got parts of the last 4,000 to 5,000 years right, sort of.  But lots of it is just not true.”

We ask them, “Well, what about our belief in God and creation and our understanding of how everything was made?”

How would it impact you if they said, “Well, none of that is true. We can show you the history of how that idea developed over time, but it’s based on some false ideas that people who wanted power over others created so they’d do what they told them.”?

OR, what if they said, “Well, actually the belief you call Buddhism is the closest thing to reality because it resonates with how things are in the universe and are the creation of some of your people who studied the relationship between time, matter, and space.”?

And you could go on with a whole list of alternatives that could be stated as “true”.

I am in no way suggesting that is true, just giving a way that you might be able to understand what it is like to step outside of your known reality.

If that’s too hard, imagine some examples a little closer to home.  

I’ve read stories of people discovering that a family member had a whole completely separate and different family in another town - like another spouse, other kids, the whole nine-yards. They didn’t find out about it until someone slipped up or showed up and suddenly everyone was understanding a whole new reality.

Or maybe even on a smaller scale, having a family member who has a long time affair and it suddenly comes out and rips the family apart.

It doesn’t have to be something that changes everything you know, but it changes enough things that there is a new reality.  What you’ve known for a long time to be true is interrupted in a way that changes the way you see a lot of things.  

When that happens, many things or even everything is colored or “feels” different in some way with this new knowledge/interruption of the way things were going and were assumed would continue going.

So, it's not just a speed bump in the path of someone who is religious or who "goes to church"?

Yes, deconstruction can seem like someone has "had a moment" and possibly learned something that shook them up and just needs some time to collect themselves. That IS what happens sometimes.

But for someone who has "seen the other side" and gone into deconstruction, it's not that easy. They don't buy into "church" or religion or the things they saw before. They don't have an innate feeling that they "know going to church is the right thing to do" or that "if they just throw themselves back into it, it'll all be good".

Often times, that is the point. They see that whole system or way of seeing God, people, and the whole religious enterprise in a whole new and different way - for better or worse.  

They see the system is wrong or at least misguided. The blessings or "good things" from the system are tainted or impure or idolatrous. Things are, or can be, completely turned on their head. They see pretending it's all good as being asked to lie in order to receive ill gotten gains.

Can't they be misguided in their deconstruction?

100% people can be misguided in their deconstruction. It is a process, not a destination. Parts of the process include stages where they explore all sorts of ideas and actions, looking for what they feel might be good or right.  

When your reality is yanked away, you don't have anything much to measure it with or compare to so you can know what is true. You're often looking for something that you can't define or describe for a while.

You wrestle around with ideas and arguments. You roll in the mud with thoughts and ideas you'd never have exposed to the light before. It can be a messy thing.

So yes, people can certainly be misguided. Lots of people just go create a new reality for themselves and possibly a new collection of people who share and/or helped them create a new reality.

Some look for a kind response or a listening ear and just go where it feels good. Any port in a storm, any place of comfort in pain. Some just go there and stay there, whether it's down in the bottom of a bottle or with a group of people who don't make them feel the way they'd felt before.

Deconstruction is often the tearing away of a reality, but it's no guarantee of someone wanting to seek "truth". For a lot of people, truth is simply not "in pain". Or it's found in "finding a cause" or some other place or direction that makes sense, occupies their time, gives them peace or relief, etc.

Why is that important to know?

Because the way you respond to people going into, through, or out of deconstruction can have unintended effects. And here's the hard thing, you can't know what they are.  

You can do your best to be friendly and accommodating or nonjudgmental or whatever, but you can't know what someone's reaction to that is going to be.

You might think that you just need to be nice and "wait them out" and they'll come back around because they saw how nice you were while they struggled.

You might think you need to be hard and preach to them and speak strongly to them and they'll wake up to the force of your words and the good intent of your heart and "come back".

You might think a lot of things, but you really can't and don't know - usually because you're expecting that they are still working from your frame of reference or worldview and assume they find the same things to be rewarding that you find to be rewarding.

It's not to say you can't have dialogue with or try to understand where someone in deconstruction "is" so you can get your bearing with them. That's actually often the better path - to seek to understand where they're coming from and ask what concepts or things they're working through.

And they might or might not know. Be okay with that. If you try to push it too hard, you'll likely not do yourself or them any favors.

No, people going through that process don't have access to more truth or better truth, they're just unhooked from what they thought was truth before and are now working (or not) on finding what will work for them.

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More soon. Just had a few moments to do some while we're all snowed in.

Peace and goodwill everyone!